Monthly Archives: July 2012

Smartphones have finally taken over the United States with more than one third of American adults -- 35% -- own smartphones. According to The Pew Internet Project's survey found that 83% of U.S. adults have a cell phone of some kind, and that 42% of them own a smartphone, translating to more then 35% of Americans who own a Smartphone. Individuals who own a Smartphone fall into one of two categories include:

One-third of cell owners (33%) say that their phone is a smartphone.

Two-in-five cell owners (39%) say that their phone operates on a smartphone platform (these include iPhones and Blackberry, as well as phones running the Android, Windows or Palm operating systems).

American's now officially count for more than 100 million users Smartphone users in the United States. Android and Apple iOS continued to grow between November 2011 and January 2012, gaining 2.3% and 1.4% respectively. Google’s mobile platform topped the charts with a total market share of 48.6%, while Apple managed to capture a 29.5% share.

Smartphones are the main source of main source of Internet access for one-quarter of the smartphone population including 87% of smartphone owners access the Internet or email on their hand-held, including two-thirds (68%) who do so on a typical day. Most smartphone users such as Samsung Galaxy S3, BlackBerry Bold, etc typically use their smartphone rather than a traditional computer to access the Internet. Smartphone owners under the age of 30, non-white smartphone users and smartphone owners with relatively low income and education levels are particularly likely to say that they mostly go online using their phones. The Android OS Platform is the most common smartphone platform, followed by iPhone and Blackberry devices. Most Smartphones are operating on an Android Platform are especially common among young adults and African-Americans, while iPhone 4S and Blackberry devices are most prevalent among college graduates and the financially well-off.

Overall, in the Smartphone Market Samsung continues to tighten its grip on the featured phone and smartphone market. Nokia was still the global leader followed by Samsung and then Apple, which showed the highest percentage growth.

1) The World's Most Expensive Mobile Phone is a the iPhone 4S "Diamond Rose" edition boasts a price tag of £5 million, which currently translates to $8,184,968.42. The lucky purchaser or recipient of this astounding and very glittery cell phone will receive 00 individual flawless diamonds totaling over 100 carats, a rose gold Apple logo with 53 diamonds, and a single cut 7.4-carat pink diamond on the home button. Sigh.......I guess I'd better start saving my money now.

2) The first mobile phone call was in 1973 on a warm, sunny afternoon by Motorola General Manager Martin Cooper took to the streets of New York with a prototype mobile phone. The first phone call he made to was s Dr Joel S Engel of Bell Labs phone company. When Dr. Engel heard who was head of research at Bell Labs answered the phone call he was greeted by Martin Cooper's voice was delighted to be able to inform him that Motorola had officially created the first mobile phone. His exact words were, “Joel, this is Marty. I'm calling you from a cellphone, a real, hand-held, portable cellphone.”

3) The first cell phone launched in 1984 at a whooping cost of more than $3,995 -- which is about $9,000 today, accounting for inflation. However, a hand-held cell phone was a definite status symbol for all of those 1980s yuppie types because the DynaTAC appeared in Gordon Gekko's hands in Wall Street, and later, Patrick Bateman used one in American Psycho. It was also made famous by Zach Morris in the 1990s high school television series Saved by the Bell.

4) The first cell phone to be actually classified as a “Smartphone” debuted in 1993 at Florida's Wireless World Conference weighing a little more than a pound and featuring a PDA type look with an early LCD touchscreen display. The original press release stated, “Designed by IBM, Simon looks and acts like a cellular phone but offers much more than voice communications. In fact, users can employ Simon as a wireless machine, a pager, an electronic mail device, a calendar, an appointment scheduler, an address book, a calculator and a pen-based sketchpad all for the cool price of $899.” Oh and by the way only 2000 of these “Smartphones” were ever produced.

5) Germany's Friedhelm Hillebrand is credited with creating today's most popular Smartphone and cell phone feature i.e. the ability to text message or also known as the SMS texting system. Hillebrand created the concept of a 128-byte text message to be sent via the existing mobile phone network. In 1985 Hillebrand experimented with making notes on his typewriter to come up with the ideal message length: 160 characters.

6) With more than two-million mobile phone towers and antennas in the U.S, cell phone towers and antennas are often disguised as signs, clock faces, drainpipes, telephone poles, church and cathedral roofs and even weather vanes especially in our more urban areas. One of the most popular ways of disguising cell phone towers is in plastic trees. They're so popular websites like FraudFrond.com “pays homage to the fake trees that disguise our cell phone towers." World renowned photographer Robert Voit featured an entire exhibit dedicated to photographs of the fake cell phone tower phenomenon.

7) Experts has recently identified telephonophobia, nomophobia, frigensophobia and ringxiety as conditions that can affect the mobile phone users of our generation. Telephonobia is the fear of making or recieving phone calls, while nomophobia means no-mobile-phone phobia and is the is the fear of being out of contact either by your phone being lost by either dead battery or no cell phone service. Ringanxiety is when you hear (or feel) your mobile ringing when it's not (talk about cell phone obbession) and Frigensophobia is the fear that using your mobile is damaging your brain.

8) In 1986 Scott Jones an promising and upcoming a26-year-old research scientist at MIT, invented the modern cellular voicemail system over a pizza or at least while attempting to order a pizza. His business venture Boston Technology won bids to create the voicemail systems for the mobile industry's big names. Talk about getting a lucky break with such a useful idea.

9) The world's most popular phone is the Nokia 1100, a basic GSM candybar launched in 2003 and became the world's best selling mobile device ever with more than 250 million 1100s have been sold worldwide.

10) Mobile device users are seeing an increase in QWERTY keyboards that offer more intelligent software means that use textonym faux pas are now being replaced by auto-correct faux pas, but not before they made the crossover from mobile to real life.

Sprint’s CEO Dan Hesse has just confirmed that his company will carry Motorola’s Photon Q LTE later this year. The new 4G LTE smartphone runs Android Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0.4 on a 1.5 GHz dual-core processor. The Photon Q comes with a full slide-out QWERTY keyboard, a 4.3-inch ColorBoost Display screen, a rear-facing 8MP camera with 1080p video capture, and a long-lasting battery (thanks to Motorola’s Smartactions app.)

The new Photon Q is expected to ship with NFC capability to power the new Android Beam data transfer service and Google Wallet mobile payment services.

This Android slider phone with a full QWERTY keyboard is perfect for the business community that has long been looking for a reason to retire those worn out BlackBerrys. The Photon Q is the latest 4G with a physical keyboard smartphone, joining the ranks of the Motorola Droid 4, Samsung Captivate Glide and Samsung Epic.

Like other Motorola phones, the Photon Q LTE will be environmentally friendly and ULE-platinum certified.

Sprint hasn’t mentioned a release date or pricing information for the Motorola device, but the company expects to make these announcements in the coming weeks.

Google has released the latest version of its Google Earth app with 3D imaging. You can download the app to the new iPad, iPad 2, iPod touch and iPhone 4S. The app is available in the iTunes store.

As Peter Birch, Google Earth product manager, blogged, “With today’s release of Google Earth for iOS you can literally fly through breathtaking 3D city landscapes and images and follow virtual tours of places you’ve never been — all with a simple swipe of your fingertip.”

Birch’s blog post highlighted the app’s Tour Guide feature that lets users browse through thumbnails to explore any city or landmark. Some of the photos are user generated.

Birch writes that Google is adding new locations “as fast as we can.” The cities that are 3D-viewable right now are Boulder, Boston, Charlotte, Lawrence (KS), Long Beach (CA.), Los Angeles, Portland (OR), San Diego, Santa Cruz, Tampa, Tucson, and the San Francisco Bay Area. On the international scene, the Google Earth app will show you Rome in 3D.

By the end of 2012, Google plans to have the 3D imaging available in metropolitan areas with a combined population of 300 million people or more.

The Japanese blog Macotakara reports that the new iPod Touch will sport a 4-inch screen, the same dimensions we expect for the display on the iPhone 5 and a nice expansion to the current 3.5-inch screen. And that isn't the only thing the Touch will have in common with its Apple siblings.

The new device will come equipped with the same A5 processor that iPhone 4S uses, and its case will have the same aluminum back that the iPad has and come in both a black and a white version.

Here is a feature that has everyone stumped. Macotakara also reports that the iPod Touch case has a hole in the lower end of the rear shell. Anyone want to guess what it's for?

A new study released byNielsen indicates that mothers more commonly own smartphones, are active bloggers, and frequently use social media such as Twitter and Facebook. According to Nielsen, Fifty-four percent of moms now own a smartphone compared to 50.4 percent of all mobile subscribers in the United States.

American mother's are more likely than overall women own a smartphone such as Apple iPhone 4S, Samsung Galaxy S3, etc.., are more than 18% more likely than overall women to have a smartphone, and smartphone adoption by moms has grown 64% in the last two years. According to “21st Century Mobile Mom Report” indicates 53% of moms say they purchased a smartphone as a direct result of becoming a mom. Simply put American Mom's love their American Smartphones. During a mother's transition to motherhood, the most important features of a mom’s phone change from her address book and text messaging to her camera, up 78% to #1, and video camera, which increased by 167% to #2. Shopping ranks as the No. 1 way most moms (81 percent) use their smartphones.

Carey Witmer, EVP/President, Meredith Parents Network said. “Today's moms are media omnivores and controlling their voracious diet is so important to them that they are constantly creating new rules about how and when media intermingles with their busy lives via their various devices, screens and networks.”

Other Nielsen studies are reporting that more than 68% of American Moms that moms use their smartphone like HTC One X, BlackBerry Bold 9790, etc, For shopping, 46% of moms also claim the most convenient time to receive information about a product is when they are in the store and another 62% of American Mothers use shopping applications to research or compare store pricing. Moms are using Smartphones from everything ranging from health and wellness to Social Networking such as Twitter and Facebook. Mom’s three top smartphone activities include reading social newsfeeds, updating their social status and d reading answers to posted questions.

Some other interesting facts about moms and their Smartphones include:

81% of moms said shopping was the #1 way they use their Smartphone.

Moms have an average of 13 applications loaded on their phones.

Two-thirds of moms say that less than half of their applications are for their kids.

The same day Apple released another stellar earnings report, it announced that the long-anticipated Mountain Lion, otherwise known as OS X 10.8, would go on sale first thing Wednesday morning.

Mountain Lion is available in the Mac app store only at a price of $19.99. Those who bought a new Mac on or after June 11 are entitled to a free upgrade.

In July 2011, Apple released the last version of the Mac OS - OS X 10.7, known as Lion. According to Apple, Lion is used by 40% of Mac owners, and 50% still use the previous version - Snow Leopard. Mountain Lion is a significant upgrade to Lion. It is rumored to add more than 200 new features, including integration with the iPhone and iPad operating system - iOS. Reminders, Messages, Notes and other notifications that will automatically sync between devices.

The Mountain Lion update is only for current Lion or Snow Leopard owners. If your Mac operates on a previous OS version, you’ll have to upgrade to Snow Leopard before buying Mountain Lion. For those with a pre-2009 Mac, your computer probably won’t have enough processor to run Mountain Lion.

Nearly 56% of Smartphone users such as Samsung Galaxy S3, HTC One X, etc in the United States have spent money on mobile applications on at least one occasion, more than 70% of users spend little to nothing on Android or Apple applications however, while the highest 3% of all spenders account for nearly 20% of the total amount spent. In the last two years the competition between Smartphones Applications especially Android and their Apple counterparts has been an immense increase in innovation, ingenuity and creativity. In 2011 with Android operating system reaching a dominant position in the world’s Smartphone market, developers have taken a sudden interest in developing applications that can more than rival their Apple counterparts. Some of the best Smartphone Mobile Applications have been developed by Android and Apple and include applications such as Google Music which lets a user upload 20,000 songs from a PC or Mac to the cloud; the Android application instantly syncs those tunes and playlists, so there’s no longer any worry about plugging a mobile device into the desktop to download their music. SPEAKTOIT ASSISTANT is the next best thing for Android Smartphone users next to Siri, the personal assistant for the Apple iPhone 4. However, while it doesn't have the same capabilities are Siri it does include , it opens a Google search with a few key words from your request, which is often faster than typing. Maybe it should have closer comparison to Dragon Naturally Speaking Software.

According to Nielsen’s latest survey of mobile applications, 36 % of American consumers have a a Smartphone whether an Android or Apple Smartphone. Apple iOS (iPhone) and Google Android OS mobile phones represent the majority of the Smartphones market in the U.S. and 74 percent of mobile users who download applications. Apple iOS and Android OS Smartphones have more applications on their mobile phones than those with other kinds of Smartphones, with an average of 48 applications on iPhones and 35 applications on Android phones. More than 68% of of applications download with iPhone 4S and 60 percent of those with Android phones reported using their mobile applications multiple times throughout the day.

However, its important to note that Smartphones applications that are provided for free usage for both the Apple iOS and Android -want something in return, and the tradeoff often comes at the expense of users' privacy. It's important to be careful especially when it comes to dealing with free applications for either Apple Smartphone or Android Smartphones.

"The presence of aggressive ad networks in mobile applications is one of the most prevalent mobile privacy issues today," said Lookout CTO Kevin Mahaffey in a recent interview. Earlier this year, for example, iOS apps Path and Hipster were found to be leaking contact data. While technically that either application development firm was grabbing people's contact information for nefarious purposes, the wholesale transmission of people's address books in unencrypted format certainly did nothing to protect the privacy of users' data. It's just another important reminder on how especially careful Apple and Android Smartphone users such as Samsung Infuse, BlackBerry Touch 9900, etc should always be.

Smartphones are an essential part of our daily lives from driving, grocery shopping and talking or texting our loved ones. Smartphones are an integral part of our daily lives that we cannot live with or without whether we're a tween, teen, a busy mother on the go, a father recording his son's first home run or a grandparent’s joy at seeing photographs of their first grandchild. Smartphone applications are a reflection of that diversity and individuality of every Smartphone user from the most necessary to the funniest applications available for every Smartphone user. Here's a list of the Top 10 Funniest Applications for Smartphones:

1.) Pocket God is an episodic and exciting application available for Android and Apple Smartphones that allows its users or players to determine what type of God they would be if they were all powerful. Players can choose whether they're a benevolent or vengeful God of their very own island with up to six islanders per island, an availability of five different islands and a number of forces of nature are yours to control and manipulate. Pocket God is a fun application for any Smartphone user especially if you have a little time to kill, after all its not everyday your God of your own island.

2.) AgingBooth is your more than typical application that shows people what they might look like when they get older. AgingBooth was launched by PiVi & Co the creators of both FatBooth and BaldBooth, some of the most popular iPhone 4S application. Now AgingBooth for Android is available to download for free on the Android Market.

3.) The Moron Test is currently one of the best selling applications well...since the introduction of the Smartphone with millions of players worldwide. The Moron Test features simple, addicting gameplay, five sections featuring hundreds of fun puzzles and even hilarious characters, sound effects, and music.

4.) BaldBooth is similar to AgingBooth and instead shows the user what they might look like if they had no hair rather than simply being older. BaldBooth is a hilariously fun way to instantly make people bald on photo with your HTC OneX and other smartphone which can be shared with family, friends or colleagues via email, MMS, FaceBook, and Twitter.

5.) Talking Lila the Fairy will allow Smartphone users to discover Lila's world of magic and songs. Lila is a flower fairy that lives in a meadow who loves to sing and cast magical spells over the Smartphone users like Nokia Lumia 900, Galaxy S3, etc. Lila the Fairy can create flowers, animals, stars and other items with the help of her fairy dust.

6.) Talking Santa is a free Smartphone application that lets you tickle Santa and make him laugh, you can also poke or slap him but that may cause Santa not to give you gifts anymore. If you're nice to Santa by bringing him milk and cookies or naughty by running him over with a giant snowball will determine what types if any presents he brings you for Christmas.

7.) GhostRadar is a paranormal application for the Ghost-hunters in your life. The GhostRadar will continuously run sensors on your Smartphone to determine if there is anything strange happening around the user. GhostRadar applications has set the standard in ghost hunting because it analyzes the readings from sensors giving indications only when interesting patterns in the readings have been made and has a voice to let you know when interesting words have been detected.

8.) Talking Tom Cat is your perfect pet cat that responds to your touch and repeats everything you say. He can be especially fun for children and even allows you to record your own videos of Tom Cat and share them on YouTube and even Facebook.

9.) SackDude: If you're feeling a little stressed or a little irritable, Sack Dude is your interactive Smartphone stress ball. So if you’re having a rough day, just remember Sack Dude can be smacked, set on fire, tickled or electrocuted and is your perfect stress reliever.

10.) FatBooth: if you are feeling a little fat FatBooth will really show you might look like carrying those few extra pounds. Or if you are having a really bad hair day FatBooth could make you feel much better about how you look now.

The idea for a “Smartphone” was conceptualized as early as 1973 by Theodore George Paraskevakos introduced combing intelligence, data processing and visual display screens with telephones. The first Smartphone was created in 1994 but the term was not officially coined until 1997 by a Swedish Corporation known as Ericsson. Here's some more interesting and fun facts about Smartphones.

1.) Android Smartphones are currently the most popular in Japan with more than more than 55% of its users in the country vs. 39% for the Apple iPhone. In other countries Android's popularity includes 41% in New Zealand, 40% in the United States and more than 38% in China but unfortunately it does not dominate in any other surveyed country except Argentina.

2.) However, the Apple iPhone has a substantial lead in Switzerland with more than 52% iPhone users vs. 23% of Android users. Other countries where the Apple iPhone is extremely popular is Australia where 49% are iPhone users vs. 25% of Android users, Canada has 45% of iPhone users vs. 23% of Android users and 23% of Blackberry users and France has 43% of iPhone users vs. 25% of Android users. Android continues to be the most popular Smartphone operating system, with 38 percent of Smartphone consumers owning Android devices. However, while Android also leads among those who recently purchased a new Smartphone, it is the Apple iPhone that has shown the most growth in recent months.

3.) More than $187.51 is spent on manufacturing Smartphones including Android and the Apple iPhones. The screen and the memory are the most expensive components of a Smartphone and more than 1 billion Smartphones are expected to be used worldwide by 2016.

4.) More than 90% of applications that are downloaded are not used more than 10 times,61% of Smartphones are used for games and more than 9% have downloaded a health or fitness applications.

5.) More than 68% of Smartphone users have accessed maps on a Smartphone is via an application, more than 27% of the 4 billion mobile phones worldwide are Smartphones. Other interesting facts include more than 25% of Smartphone owners go online mostly on their phones and 35% of adults in the United States own a Smartphone.

6.) According to Gartner Group mobile devices will pass PCs as the access device of choice by 2013. 53% of mobile users would share their location to receive more relevant ads. More than 50% of mobile users watch 3 hours and 37 minutes of video on their phones per month according to Neilsen and more than a 1/3 of American teenager’s text at least 100 times per day.

7.) There are more than 1.08 billion Smartphone users in the world, out of which, 91.4 million are from the United States. With more than five billion mobile phone users in the world, 1.08 billion are Smartphone users. Of those 1.08 billion users more than 89% of Smartphone users use their smart phones throughout the day, more than 92% of Smartphone users use their Smartphone to send text messages to other phones and more than 84% of users use their Smartphones for browsing the Internet.

8.) More than 62% of United States Smartphone users are between the ages of 25-34 years old, 50% of Android Smartphones and 43% of Apple iPhone users are younger than 34 years old and 53% of Smartphone users are male and 47% are female.

9.) The average Android Smartphone users consume the highest amount of data at 582 Mbs a month, while iPhone4S owners on consume 492 Mbs of data a month on average. Whereas Apple iPhone users download the maximum applications per month, which is 48Mbs. Downloading applications is the most popular data usage activity for smartphone users. Singapore has the highest Smartphone application rate.

10.) On an average day a Smartphone users will spend 25 minutes browsing the Internet, 17 minutes on Facebook or other social networking websites, 13 minutes a day playing games or downloading applications, 16 minutes listening to music, 11 minutes making phone calls, 10 minutes text messaging and 3 minutes taking photographs.